UPB koans

[Subsidiarity]

These are questions that seem most clear and potentially insightful to me, with respect to UPB. Can any UPB masters tell me if these do in fact hold the keys to UPB? Or if these questions can be made yet simpler? Or if there are simpler unrelated questions to meditate upon?

*Can a man and a woman mutually rape each other?*Does holding rape as a moral ideal prevent one from resisting sex?  

[Subsidiarity]

Further meditation on UPB has taken me further. Tell me if any of this makes sense.

Voluntary interactions are symetric. A trades with B means the same as B trades with A. Giving merely means that the counter gift is hidden. 

Involuntary interactions are asymetric. A doing involuntary act to B is not the same as B doing involuntary act to A. 

'Universalization' assumes that all individuals are moral peers to be universalized. And for some small enough category, perhaps everybody, or perhaps only, say, productive white blonde men. Either way, there is a category of peers. To say they are peers that can be 'universalized' is to say that you cannot make moral categories out of them by asymetric (involuntary) interactions. 

If this is close to the message of UPB, this language of 'symetry' and 'moral peers' makes MUCH more sense to me than talking about bob and doug trying to rape each other in a cube. 

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

I really like your idea of "symmetry" and "moral peers". That seems like an original way to think about upb. 

[Subsidiarity]

I tend to think this kind of vocabulary leads to a more technical discussion rather than talk about personal failings of why a person cannot understand why Bob and Doug cannot rape each other. Molyneux's explanation that got the most traction with me was on AVTM. Watching it a few times I noticed there were 5 people in studio listening to Molyneux and none of them gave any indication that they had any idea what he was talking about. 

What is it about Bob and Doug that matters, and what is it about rape that matters? I suspect that it is that Bob and Doug are moral peers that matters, and that rape is asymetric that matters. Though I would like to have a UPB ninja confirm this for me. 

To try to clarify these matters more: There is a question of 'Who are moral peers?' That is a question that doesn't have to be answered in order to make headway into understanding UPB. To practically apply UPB perhaps an answer to that question will be needed. Whatever the answere is to that question you will be left with some group of individuals, moral peers. Since this is a group of equals, morally speaking, only interactions that treat the individuals as equals, symetrical interactions, can be legitimate. Symetrical interactions include interactions where Bob and Doug both agree to the interaction. 

If we use this analysis to look at murder: Let's define murder as non-consensual non-defensive (aggressive) killing. We will assume that Bob and Doug are moral peers. For murder to exist there must be a murderer, Bob, and a victim, Doug. Bob is interacting with Doug without consent from Doug. If we were to call this interaction legitimate it would put Bob and Doug into separate moral categories, and thus contradicting their being moral peers... that probably needs to be unpacked more.

One problem with Molyneux's UPB presentation is that he doesn't define murder as 'non-consensual non-defensive killing', but rather (implicitly) something like 'immoral killing'. It is possible for Bob and Doug to kill each other at the same time. It is possible for them to do so without consent. So if murder is defined as 'non-consensual non-defensive killing' it is entirely possible for Bob and Doug to murder each other at the same time. But Molyneux focuses on if each Bob and Doug may simulateously kill each other immorally. His answer is 'no'. Moral peers and asymetric interaction is my best attempt to untagle the knot as to why this is so. 

This also begs the question of why is Molyneux doing implicit definitions. 

Curious: does my name, Chomskyness from back when I was a liberal, start out encounters on FDR with an adversarial bent. 

[norpan]

Yes, this is also something which I have thought about a great deal, namely in the context of punishment.

Most libertarians and anarchists state that some form of aggressive punishment is moral, even though the action itself would normally be immoral. This is a parallel to the concept that defense is moral.

But defense is moral because the right to defend your property is the same as the right to property. Property rights are defined as the right to use force to defend property. Just as the property rights definition defines aggression as immoral, it defines defense as moral.

With retributive aggressive force, this is not the case. In fact, the criminal has property rights over his own body. Kinsella and others has tried to overcome this problem by invoking a concept called estoppel. This means that the criminal, by virtue of his actions, has violated morality, and so cannot reasonably claim moral behaviour from others.

But I don't think this holds water. What the criminal can reasonably claim does not in any way affect the morality of somebody elses actions. The only thing that determines if a violent action is aggressive is whether it is approved of by the victim or not. In the case of defense there is a direct link between the violent action and the property being defended, and the "victim" of the violent defensive action has only to stop violating the property rights for the defensive action to immediately become immoral again.

Not so with aggressive retribution. Here there is some kind of "delayed property violation" not intrinsically connected with the property itself, but with the criminal. This concept is very interesting to analyze objectively, but so far I haven't been able to find any attempt to objectively bind the criminal to the property once the property violation has stopped. At least not in a way that makes violent action against the criminal moral. The main problem is how to objectively determine which aggressive action is allowed, and which is not. There is of course the concept of proportionality, but that is an entirely subjective concept, as there is no way to objectively determine if one piece of property is proportionate in value to another, as value is a purely subjective concept.

So this goes back to the fact that all people are moral peers. Regardless of their previous actions. To have it any other way would be to lose objectivity.

[Subsidiarity]

By retributive punishment do you include making a victim whole? I understand your point about the subjective value of things, but just as a wrinkle what if I throw your gold in the river. Intuitively it seems like you would have a claim to my gold. Or does retributive punishment only mean an extra punishment to invoke general deterrence?

To say that all people are moral peers is begging for a definition of 'people'. I tend to side with molyneux on this one that it is the capacity to respect morals, not necessarily even the exercise of that capacity, that gives you moral protection.

[Subsidiarity]

Also in a previous post said it was the mutual exchange that made trade symmetric. I don't think that is quite right. Rather it is the equal ability of the participants to veto the interaction that makes it symmetric. This makes the issue of giving clearer. Gifts are also symmetric as we may equally decline, you the giving and me the receiving.

[norpan]

 

By retributive punishment do you include making a victim whole? I understand your point about the subjective value of things, but just as a wrinkle what if I throw your gold in the river. Intuitively it seems like you would have a claim to my gold. Or does retributive punishment only mean an extra punishment to invoke general deterrence?

To say that all people are moral peers is begging for a definition of 'people'. I tend to side with molyneux on this one that it is the capacity to respect morals, not necessarily even the exercise of that capacity, that gives you moral protection.

 

Yes, this includes making the victim whole. The concept of property just says that a specific scarce good is property. It does not say anything about the quality of the object. If you throw my gold in the river, it is still my gold in the river. It does not transfer ownership of your gold to me. If "making a victim whole" is an objective concept, how do you objectively specify what property now belongs to the victim?

I know that "intuitively " it seems I have a claim to your gold, just as it "intuitively" many people think that they have a claim to kill a murderer. But intuition is not a valid argument.

Though I am open for arguments as to why aggressive retribution is an objective moral concept. Until I get such arguments that I accept, I won't use aggression for retribution because until then I have to consider it immoral.

Indeed, "people" is not right to use here. A moral peer is something that has the capability to understand morality or (to be on the safe side) that potentially could could have that in the future (such as children or psychopaths or people in a coma). If you are reasonable sure that that something doesn't have the capability or can have it in the future, then it's not a moral peer.

[Subsidiarity]

Why are potential moral agents in the same class as moral agents? With respect to morals they can be differentiated. Perhaps those differences don't lead to any effective differences, but until that is demonstrated logically I would not consider healthy adults as moral peers to fetuses.

I should further clarify something else. 'Moral peer' is not a description of a thing but a relationship between things. All moral agents would be peers to each other, likewise amoral agents would be peers. As you mentioned potential moral agents may be yet another class of peers. 

Does the moral class affect what interactions are legitimate? Is it legitimate for a dog to rape a dog? Does their lack of conception about consent mean that dog morals don't exclude rape, or anything really since consent is a central concept. Then for a dog even the concept of rape wouldn't mean anything. The act may be unwanted, but that is distinct from unconsented.

If UPB is perfected does that mean that morality becomes a purely rational exercise? And that since psychopaths are capable of reason they are capable of moral action? And yes AI too.

[norpan]

Let's look at it from the property rights angle; the basic principle of morality.

We have universally and objectively established a system of property rights, where an agent can claim property rights as a universal. In the basic sense, the claiming of property rights is a moral action, you are saying that it is wrong for anybody else to violate your property, and so you are a moral agent.

Now, featuses, small children, or coma victims do not claim property rights, because they don't know the have them, but there is the chance that they will know this in the future, and can claim them retroactively.

I understand that killing small children prevents them from developing into moral agents, but we can say that the action was wrong because if we hadn't done it, at a later date the victim could have claimed it to be wrong, and so we have to wait until that moment and get their permission. We can also say that if we had waited, the victim would probably not have given their permission, so there is no "I didn't know" defense.

I know this is a counterfactual claim, but I have no better at the moment. It's more like the "better safe than sorry" principle

With regards to psycopaths, they are clearly capable of claiming their property rights, which makes them full moral agents.